https://theloop.ecpr.eu/decolonisation-in-practice-reconceptualising-ukrainian-nationalism/ ECPR's Political Science Blog Mon, 19 Feb 2024 12:12:02 +0000 hourly 1 https://theloop.ecpr.eu/decolonisation-in-practice-reconceptualising-ukrainian-nationalism/#comment-47817 Mon, 19 Feb 2024 12:12:02 +0000 https://theloop.ecpr.eu/?p=15758#comment-47817 MC's comment ignores the long history of state-sponsored Russianisation in the territories that comprise present-day Ukraine. During the course of the 19th century, the use of Russian as the exclusive language of higher education and officialdom gradually turned the cities of eastern Ukraine into Russian-speaking islands surrounded by a sea of Ukrainian-speaking villages. For the most part, the present Ukrainian language policy is one of decolonialisation, of reversing the Russification of previous centuries.
But there are ethno-linguistic minorities in Ukraine whose ancestors never spoke Ukrainian: principally the ethnic Russian settlers of the eastern Donbas, and the ethnic Hungarians whose ancestors found themselves living in the Soviet Union as a result of the First World War. More sensitive handling of linguistic minorities might have served Ukraine better, but there are abundant precedents for language policy as a tool of nation-building (not least in France!)

]]>